How I Became a Sprinter in One Week

What a week I had last week! While you might read the title of this post and think it’s a how-to guide to become a sprinter in one week… well, not exactly. I will provide some insight into my journey and some ideas about how it happened that might be instructive, but don’t get your hopes up that you too can become a sprinter in a week’s time because that’s pretty fast. This very easily could have been titled' ‘how I became a sprinter in 10 years’ too…

A Decade of Racing

I’ve raced bikes for about 10 years. Initially a burnt out triathlete trying to make friends when I randomly moved to New York due to a third life crisis, when I started racing I had no idea what I was doing. I was quite fit due to my years of training (overtraining), so I upgraded from cat 4 relatively quickly as I would ride away from fields. Once I got my cat 3, however, my old tricks no longer worked and after years of trying to learn to sprint I resigned myself to being a Cat 3 for Life. Until last week!

Discovering A Sprint

Our team has been going to Floyd Bennett Field most weeks this summer. It’s been a ton of fun and our amazing teammie Leah won the first series of races. For the second series, we just wanted to have fun and make the races really dynamic. I decided for last week that due to my living far uptown, this was likely my last Floyd of the season, and I was going to try to go out in a blaze of glory (or stupidity).

So I attacked, and when that didn’t work I attacked again, and when that didn’t work I said to myself after I got thrown out of position and couldn’t lead a teammate out, that I might as well try to sprint. And somehow, in spite of starting my sprint late, I moved right up and got fourth!

Podium Dog Sophie was the True Champion (Photo Credit: Rod Millott, Golden Retriever Dad)

I was super excited but clear-eyed that I had not magically become a 1,000 watt sprinter. It was extremely fun though, and I figured why not try to sprint some more in the Sunday CRCA Power Points Race. Note: Power Points means that instead of winning by crossing the line first at the end, you accumulate points by sprinting twice per Central Park loop, and the person with the highest number of points at the end wins.

Me, just hanging out in the field like normal (Photo Credit: Bicycle Racing Pictures)

I sat in for the first few sprints and realized quickly that with the awesome sprinters in the field, I wasn’t going to get any points without a break. I lucked into a short-lived break on the second lap and won a sprint. When our break was caught, I was disappointed, but not surprised… but I enjoyed that win and started to think about how I could get more points! So coming into the next sprint point, I attacked hard maybe 300 meters before the sprint point.

My decisive move, on film! (Photo Credit: Bicycle Racing Pictures)

I got away with three other racers. Then it got weird. There was a crash on the Lasker Pool descent and officials slowed us way down (but not the field)… so we were absorbed. The field then said well that’s not sporting, you should re-establish your gap! So we did!

We kept working together for the most part, with some cat and mouse games around the sprint points. I somehow accumulated two firsts, two seconds, and two thirds (in the last sprint, I was second).

Fierce! LOL (Photo Credit: Bicycle Racing Pictures)

We had some minor drama in calculating results because I had been removed as I had originally planned to help out with the race clinic. But we stood around doing math and it became apparent that I had won! I sort of could believe it because of math, but if you had told me before the season that I’d win a Central Park race much less a Power Points race, I’d have thought you were absolutely nuts. I was so excited!

The best part of the morning was having coffee with the team, talking about our races. We didn’t talk about any major insights from the race, or how I suddenly got results, but here are some things I think really helped me…

The Keys to Sprinting Success

• A fantastic team. We have fun, we support each other, we goad each other into racing when we don’t feel like it, we discuss random books, movies, and TV. They really make everything more fun and I adore them all.

• Not overtraining! When I was super into racing in years past, I always trained way too much. If an hour of riding in the morning’s good, two hours must be better, right? Actually, not so much. I think I was always exhausted.

• Listening to my coach. I have also (probably due to the above) generally not had the best compliance. I had a stated goal this year to improve compliance, and I’ve done pretty well.

• Having fun. I am honestly having a great time racing. I’ve stopped thinking about the most strategic thing to do, or just sat in because it seems smart, and if I feel like causing chaos and making things dynamic, I do it.

• Practicing sprinting. Okay I have been doing this! Whenever I have unstructured time, I do practice some amount of sprinting. This habit has helped me judge how long I can actually hold a sprint which is really useful in a race when evaluating my positioning and timing.

• Citibike Training. I rarely commute via any other method than Classic Citibike. This is honestly a great, moderate way to add time on the bike that isn’t too strenuous but does add time in low aerobic zones.

• A healthy relationship with food. While I eat quite a bit, I’ve learned over the years to eat when I’m hungry and stop when I get full. Simple but really hard for me for a long time. Because I have a healthy relationship with food now, I’m at a healthy weight and I do believe this has helped me race better.

Photo Credit: Lucia Deng, TBD